(CNN) - Mitt Romney's opposition to Buffett Rule may be "because he's exploiting all of these loopholes" in the tax code, Rep. Henry Waxman charged in a Democratic National Committee conference call on Thursday afternoon.

Waxman launched into Romney for a lack of transparency as Democrats have put the Republican presidential nominee under another wave of pressure to release tax and financial documents.FULL POST

(CNN) - Mitt Romney and Rick Perry were bitter rivals last autumn and early winter, during the battle for the Republican presidential nomination, but that's apparently all ancient history.

Friday the Texas governor will make his first campaign appearance on behalf of the presumptive GOP nominee, an official with the Romney campaign confirms to CNN. Perry will be in Elko, Nevada to headline the opening of a Romney campaign field office. The former Massachusetts governor will not be at the event.FULL POST

(CNN) - Accusations of lies and counter-lies dominated the intensifying November election campaign Thursday, with surrogates and spokespeople for President Barack Obama and certain Republican nominee Mitt Romney trying to cast the other as dishonest and secretive.

While neither candidate engaged directly in the political back-and-forth, their teams and supporters launched new attack ads and criticized the opposing contender with increasingly sharp rhetoric.

CNN's GUT CHECK | for July 12, 2012 | 5 p.m.
– n. a pause to assess the state, progress or condition of the political news cycle

JUST IN:WHEN DID MITT ROMNEY REALLY LEAVE BAIN? New documents obtained by Fortune’s Dan Primack show that Mitt Romney was not one of the managers for three funds Bain Capital started in 2000 and 2001. Romney is also not mentioned in documents related to Bain Capital's first dedicated venture capital fund, which was set up in 2001. The timing of Romney's departure from Bain became a lightning rod earlier today, when The Boston Globe published an article suggesting that Romney remained actively involved with the firm longer than he and his campaign have claimed. The sourcing is largely SEC documents that list Romney as Bain Capital's CEO and sole shareholder through 2002 - or three years after Romney officially left to run the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.

(FORTUNE) – Mitt Romney did not manage Bain Capital's investments after leaving to run the Salt Lake City Olympic Games, according to confidential firm documents obtained by Fortune.

The timing of Romney's departure from Bain became a lightning rod earlier today, when The Boston Globe published an article suggesting that Romney remained actively involved with the firm longer than he and his campaign have claimed. The sourcing is largely SEC documents that list Romney as Bain Capital's CEO and sole shareholder through 2002 - or three years after Romney officially left to run the Salt Lake City Olympic Games.

Lewiston, Maine (CNN) - There are a dozen issues Embed America is covering first hand this month, crisscrossing the highways of America. None of them gets more time at the political podium than jobs.

But in Lewiston, Maine people told us that the candidates neither understand the problem nor how to solve it. And Lewiston, nicknamed “the industrial heart of Maine," is a near perfect sample of what’s happening across the country – a place that is both creating some jobs and suffering because it has too far few of them.

Washington (CNN) – Some African-Americans have watched enviously as President Barack Obama courted other voting blocs critical to his re-election hopes.

The president pushed for repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell" law that barred gays from serving openly in the military and endorsed same-sex marriage; he helped push through fair pay for women; he supported the DREAM Act, which provided a path to citizenship for young adults in the U.S. illegally; he said his administration would stop deporting young illegal immigrants who entered the country as children provided they meet certain requirements.